[FIN] Playing Pretend

[TawnyAngel]

After a rather long silence Zevran opened his eyes again and raised a hand slowly to his chest. "He did, and I don't understand why." Like Abel Zevran kept his gaze lowered and his voice was low too now, softened from the hiss he had given before but still tightly controlled.

There was another pause and then; "You must have been afraid. I... I would be afraid to see you wounded so." He didn't know what else to say. "You say 'talk about what you feel and think' as though I comprehend either. I don't." He felt as though he was ripping apart inside but he didn't understand the feeling or know how to put it into words.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Ah.. I'm sorry, I'm not.. very good at this sort of thing, um... Well," his hands turned palm-up for a moment before they clasped together in his lap and he shifted to lean his elbows on his legs. Maybe he could try to explain it by... explaining how he felt? Probably not, but it was worth a try. Not that that would help Zev understand why his best friend felt the need to shoot him, but maybe it was better than nothing? Maybe? "I was at first, a bit, though I kept it together for a while. It wasn't until after I brought you to the hospital and once they'd finished asking me things and checking my ear, when I didn't have anything else to do or focus on to fix the situation except just sit with Taavi and wait to hear news about how you were that I just... well." The taller blond shrugged a little as one hand lifted to rub at the back of his neck. It was almost embarrassing to admit.. no, that wasn't it. It was more... something. It was something he couldn't put his finger on, something that made him hesitate. "I kind of... ah... fell apart, I guess you could say. I cried. I... we didn't hear anything from anyone about how you were - or if you'd even made it - for a few hours after I brought you in."  

[TawnyAngel]

"...Oh."

Not knowing what else to say Zevran shifted over on the bed to sit beside Abel so that their legs touched. After a moment he wrapped and arm tentatively around his waist. "I am here now, and I am okay. I... You know that I thought he had come to kill me at first? When he said that was not his intent I... I hoped. I cannot say what I hoped but I did. I don't know the last time I cried." Those things hadn't really been related but Abel had said to say what he was thinking and feeling and it was those things that had come to mind.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Despite how terrible he felt for Zevran, warmth still blossomed in his heart at the touch -- both of them. A soft, faint smile curved Abel's lips as he wrapped one arm around his boyfriend's shoulders in return and leaned in to press a gentle kiss to his temple. "I know, and I can't express how glad I am that you are. And.. I remember. I thought the same thing, though I only had what you said to go off of. I'd never met him before - or any of them - but it seemed like the most likely reason, all things considered at the time. But... I hoped too. I hoped maybe we could get out of it without any bloodshed, even though it was a small likelihood... I hoped that maybe we could convince him that you didn't want to go, and that he'd be okay with it or something, and maybe he'd be open to talking about why, or at least curious about it... That wasn't the case though. The only thing he seemed interested in was taking you back one way or another... and crying seems like the sort of thing Crows are discouraged from doing, unless I'm much mistaken." Expressing yourself and emotions through tears? No, he couldn't imagine that being tolerated, much less encouraged.  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran gave a dry little laugh and shook his head. "You are right there. At best it accomplished nothing, at worst one of the more unpleasant Masters would show their displeasure at the weakness. That was when we were apprentices of course, I think I have only once seen a marked Crow weep... Twice." Rinna had cried before Taliesen had killed her. He should not tell Abel that. He should. "Once it was a man who had just lost his partner... and once it was a young woman begging her partners for her life." He had to close his eyes again then and take carefully regular breaths. Taliesen had killed Rinna. He had killed Taliesen. Who was left to kill him in his turn?  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Ahh, punishment; of course. Twice though, that... Oh--

Abel stole a glance at his boyfriend and saw.. more or less what he expected to see. Should he...? Shouldn't he...? Zevran had been vague about it, but at least he'd mentioned it, so maybe he shouldn't... but should he? They were already talking about upsetting things, and that was probably the second most upsetting one. Maybe. Why did so many awful things happen to Zev that he struggled to rank which was the worst? Gently, quietly he asked, "Was that Rinna?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran dropped his arm away from Abel's waist and knotted his fingers in the bed-covers. He took another careful breath and nodded, his eyes still closed. "She said she loved me. Us. She said that she had not betrayed us, that she never would. We didn't believe her. Taliesen killed her. I laughed. And then he - in the warehouse I mean - he made it sound so reasonable. He thought that killing her was reasonable, and at the time I agreed. I must have agreed. Why else would I have let him do it?" It was hard to remember what he had thought and felt in those moments, her voice and the bloom of blood overwhelmed everything else.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Even though Zev's arm fell away, Abel's arm stayed securely around his love's shoulders as long as the other man wanted it there... or rather, until such a time as he wanted it gone. Now seemed like an instance where he'd want it there, though. Zevran had mentioned Rinna a handful of times, but every time the tragic event seemed to upset him just as much as the last time, evidence of another time he'd just shoved his feelings and emotions down to the bottom of a hole instead of deal with them. ...maybe not just shove the emotions themselves, but also the memory, it sounded like. Had he buried it so deep inside himself that he'd forgotten pieces of it? "She wanted to leave, didn't she? Wanted to leave the Crows, I mean."  

[TawnyAngel]

"I... No." Zevran's eyes opened once more and he shook his head but a moment later he frowned and shrugged. "Maybe she did? Probably. She was... different. She was older than most when she was brought in, already in her teens. Looking back I think she held onto more of what you would call normality than most do. But what happened? That was to do with a contract. We were given information that she had been leaking intelligence to a mark, and we were told to dispose of her and... and so we did. Afterwards we were told that it had been a lie, the whole thing was merely a test of our loyalty they said... but I think that was a lie too. I don't think they liked the effect she had on us." Thinking about it made him feel sick, how could anyone do that? But he knew how, he knew why, and it had made a kind of sense to him as little as a year and a half ago.

"They miscalculated," Zevran added distantly.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Oh, that wasn't it... where had he gotten that? Maybe he'd just come to the conclusion from what Zev had said in the past, he did tend to overthink things... But the truth was much harder to swallow than that. "That's..." They would do something like that? "That's ******** horrible. That's... I knew they were cruel, but to do something like that? That's some seriously ******** up s**t. ...what did they miscalculate?" Seriously though, it seemed like the more he learned about Zevran's past, the worse he felt about it, and the gladder he was that he'd left and was never going back.  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran shrugged again, he didn't look up. "They thought that it would strengthen our resolve, make us better operatives, yet a year and a some months later we are both lost to them. Quite a waste of resources."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Mmh, that's right.. That was why you left, I remember you told me before. Their plan backfired then, and they lost all three of you... not that they'll really suffer over that loss." Not in the same way Zevran and Taliesen had -- and now just Zevran. All three best friends, and now he was the only one left... and he had a sneaking suspicion Zev blamed himself entirely for both of them, not just Taliesen's death.

Rather than voice those thoughts - despite the subject matter he felt that was a little too terrible - he gave his boyfriend's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "What was she like? Besides older than you were when she was taken in. I think you told me once.. she took over planning from Taliesen? That's all I can remember."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Ha." For some reason he found himself smiling bitterly. "They will suffer it; we could have been incredible, the three of us. If they could have allowed us a bit of sentiment we would have raised our house above the rest and commanded fees that only crown jewels could pay. Too bad." Instead here he was without either of them, and yet not alone.

Rinna.

He didn't know if he wanted to talk about her. Part of him did, part did not. He listened to the former. "Yes that's right, she was incredibly incisive and a master strategist. She just... saw how things should fit together I think she put it. She had early training though; she was some royal's b*****d and her mother hoped to put her onto the throne. Stupid. Bold but stupid. The woman paid for her foolishness with her life, Rinna became one of us. I can only assume our house hoped to use her as some political piece or other, or they wouldn't have bothered to bring in an older child. She was..." Zevran trailed off for a moment and shook his head. "She was funny. Mean. Kind. Tumultuous. She would only have churros if there was dark chilli chocolate sauce to dip them in. She loved early mornings and late nights, and so she always took a longer siesta than most of us.... And she couldn't cook worth a damn."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

They could have been incredible; he didn't doubt it, and yet he found himself glad that was not the case. Was that selfish of him? Yes, very much so, but he also was glad because it meant Zevran was somewhere better. Unfortunately his friends were not, so was it really better? "I'd believe it completely, and I doubt it means much but I think you're already incredible," Abel said as he gave his love's shoulder another small squeeze.

Rinna sounded... "It sounds like she was a fun person," he noted aloud, trying to picture her in his mind. It didn't really work too well, but it was still nice to try. Ah, maybe... Abel made a mental note to ask Zev for a sketch sometime in the future. "Someone who could keep things interesting.. and as I recall it you were the chef of the three, yeah? ...do you miss her?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran smiled faintly and leaned a little more against Abel. "Of course you do. You are biased. I like it." He was unendingly baffled by it, but he loved it. He loved Abel. He had loved Rinna, and Taliesen, but not like this.

"She was. She was... chaotic, and this is coming from me ¿entender?" Zevran shook his head and frowned; he sometimes peppered Spanish words into conversation if he felt like it or if he had forgotten the English but he never accidentally used a Spanish word, nobody did that in the real world. Perhaps it was the drugs? "Personally chaotic but so precise in her plots, it was a strange contradiction that I... that I loved about her. I do miss her. A great deal. She... she deserved so much better. We all did."